Body-Mass of Armour-Wearing Warriors?

[Jeffrey Hull]

I ask this pursuant to an interesting discussion I had recently with my brother.

One frequently runs into glib unsupported quips about the average body height or weight of Medieval man was blah-blah-blah.

Of course, almost none of these sweeping generalities never seem to get specific -- like by ethnicity (did they survey the achaeological remains of everybody from the Scots to the Portuguese); or specific time period (gee, by Medieval some dude could mean the time spanning anywhere from 500-1350 -- but of course, that is never clarified) -- plus the failing of any sweeping statement about the average man being extraploated to armoured men: for the men who actually wore armour in any given period are never the average men of their time and culture. So to survey a mass-grave of plague-stricken peasants or monks just does not quite meet the criteria. It would be like someone asking about the average mass of modern firemen, and instead of going to a firehouse to find out, to instead go to a pawn shop, survey the dudes there, and then extrapolate that to the firemen.

The specific query

Does a valid survey of the body-mass of Medieval and Renaissance armour-wearing warriors exist?

I would imagine that the best way to do this would be to survey the estimated height & weight only the remains of warriors who were known to have fought armoured and/or the dimensions & volume of the armours that they wore.
Although like anything else, there may be some problems of methodology etc nonetheless.

It would be exceedingly nice if someone has bothered to do such a study, instead of just making the same trite statements over and over, without any semblance of any substantiation whatsoever.

Please note, in order to prevent occurence of any of the recent paranoias which have been witnessed lately in other topics, none of this is meant to show one nation or race as better than another. A smaller man can fight just deadly as a bigger man. I just want to know about the facts of this question.

[s_taillebois]

Not quite sure how that survey could be acheived. Much of what they could tell, would be from muscle/tendon attachments on bones. And there are enough extant burials (such as Towton, Jamestown, or Agincourt) to make that possible. However, it does raise substantial cultural sensitivity issues, desecration of graves and etc. Especially since many non-battlefield interments, reside in Cathedrals/Churches which are still in use as sacred sites.
There are some indications of fairly developed musculature with soldiers/nobility. At some burials (Jamestown ie) researchers have noted substantial development on the attachment nodes for the radial and ulna. So at least, evidence of fairly strong forearms.
As for actual preserved corpses, despite the medieval Renn. tendancy to collect relics/body remnants, seeming fairly few for the group which you address. Perhaps the Knight of Bes, would be the only one I'm aware of...he wasn't preserved as a saint/etc...but for some reason was bound in a lead sheet with honey on the inside.
Bes is in England, and don't know if any research has been done on him.

[Justin Lompado]

I have to agree with Mr. Tallebois. I really don't know how we could accuratley verify with any absolute certainty the physical characteristics of people who lived at least 600 years ago. We can really take into account their likey diet, possible physical routine, and the presence of disease in their areas and then form generalizations that are more likley to be not incorrect than truly correct.